Jennifer Meeropol is the granddaughter of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and the daughter of RFC Founder, Robert Meeropol. Jenn became the Executive Director of the RFC on September 1, 2013. Prior posts on this page were written by Robert (unless otherwise noted), and represent his opinions, which are not necessarily shared by the RFC.
In November 2011, shortly after the violent government crackdown on the two-month old Occupy Wall Street movement, I blogged here, “It is not surprising that OWS became intolerable to the authorities the movement refused to recognize. Such public naming of capitalism as Public Enemy Number One could not be countenanced. Beatings, tear-gassing, property destruction and thousands of arrests were inevitable, despite the protesters’ heroic non-violence.”
The United States in the only nation in the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition that retains a grand jury system. A grand jury is the prosecutor’s tool for investigating what the government deems to be possible criminal activity. Although it has the power to bring criminal indictments as well as to compel people to testify about their activities and those of others in return for a grant of immunity from prosecution, witnesses are not permitted to have their attorneys accompany them into the grand jury room. A witness who flatly refuses to cooperate or to testify after being grante
What do the son of a Black Panther released after 27 years of false imprisonment, a young activist who traveled over a thousand miles to demonstrate against NATO, a mother with young children who is an Iraq war resister, three young radicals jailed for refusing to talk to a witch-hunting grand jury, a single mom with a teenage daughter fired for spearheading a unionization campaign at Walmart, and a refugee father fleeing from torture in Africa have in common? They and/or their families were all welcomed into the RFC community of support this fall.
Under the headline, "Cuba pushes swap: its spies jailed in US for American contractor held in Havana," NBC News reporter Michael Isikoff wrote on December 3rd, “It seems straight out of a Cold War spy movie. A group of Cuban undercover agents sneak into the U.S.
Earlier this week I read that Bradley Manning’s lawyers have moved that the charges against him be dismissed on the grounds that he has been subjected to “unlawful pretrial punishment” and “unduly onerous confinement conditions.” Manning provided testimony in court on Tuesday in support of this motion. (http://usnews.nbcnews.com/bradley-manning)